Together and Apart
by Cinnamon-Scents
Summary: Silver loved nature, and Gold hated nature. Gold loved people, and Silver hated people. But, the loved each other- or, so they thought. {Precious metal} {Hunter Shipping} {GoldXSilver} MENTIONS OF SELF HARM AND ALCOHOL ABUSE .
Silver loved traveling. He loved the endless skies and how the mountains loomed over him. He loved the shape of the earth and the way it dipped into the water of the everlasting seas. Silver loved sitting and watching the rocks and the water. Sometimes it was small creeks they worked together, flowing and melding as one. Other times, Silver watched the unmovable hunks of stone scream against the salt water, both fighting for dominance. Silver loved everything about the land, and hated everything about people. He hated their greedy, wanting ways, and how weak and unforgiving they were.

Gold loved people. He loved sitting in coffee shops and watching people rush in and out with cold drinks for a hot summer's day. He loved watching couples drink coffee and talk about nothing while gazing into each other's eyes. Gold loved seeing people take a moment to stop, and appreciate what was in front of them. He loved watching teenagers put down the phone, have their Pokémon cuddled with them as they read a book and sipped hot chocolate. Gold loved people, but hated the land. He hated how the trees twisted and trapped him, sticking out their roots to make him fall. He hated the way that long grass tickled at his feet, begging him to come closer to it could ensnare him in it's hold.

It was odd that they loved each other, seeing how they hated what the other held so dearly to his own heart. It was odd circumstances that they got together in the first place, Gold supposed, planting a long kiss on Silver's lips. It wasn't the most romantic, Silver remembered, pushing Gold onto the bed, promptly making both forget the memory.

They were destined for each other, people whispered, as the two would walk hand in hand. The disowned Prince of the criminals, and the rising King of the Pokémon league. The boy who's father fell to the mysterious man Gold had defeated. But neither Silver nor Gold cared what the media or the people thought of anything.

They had recieved screaming threats and rocks thrown as they sprinted into the woods, callings of how they were against Arceus' will fading into the distance as they lay on an open field. Under the endless sky which mountains could not touch and where everything seemed empty and cold, Silver and Gold melded into one metal, filling the emptiness with whispers of love and creating stars of their own in the dark.

Nothing good ever lasts, Gold thought sadly, watching the door slam in front of him. Dead roses and a magazine lay on the table.

"I'm ruining you reputation! The people don't want a Pokémon master that's been touched by my filthy hands!"

"I don't care what they think! You're not filthy, Silver. You're who I have always loved, and I'll give up my postion and Pokémon in miliseconds if it means staying with you!"

"I don't want you to give up your life for a person like me. As weak as people are, they're right. You'll live better without me."

Slam.

Silver surrounded himself in nature and his faithful Pokémon. Gold surrounded himself with people, both falling back into their own patterns that suddenly felt lackluster.

For Silver, nature suddenly seemed cold and empty. The mountains were no longer comforting, but instead looming giants that threatened to crush him at any given time. They reminded Silver of how alone he was. The streams trickled merrily but they sounded like they were laughing at Silver because Gold and him weren't having a picnic. He's so alone, the trees would whisper. He's alone, and he deserves it. Gold should love someone who isn't the son of a criminal and who abused his Pokémon and who shows love better. Gold didn't deserve you. Silver would wash Feraligator, trying to ignore his twisted reflection in her scales, and the cruel giggles of the grass swishing beside him, teasing him why he wasn't lying in it and planting kisses on Gold's smiling face.

For Gold, people suddenly had no charm. He hated how cold and cruel and he felt like screaming and crying. The league put him in therapy at his sudden anxiety of people- everything said about anyone in the tabloids made Gold break into a mess of tears and fear that people would do that to him, because what if they were right that he was filthy? What if they found out Gold had driven Giovanni to his suicide? What if they found out that Gold had killed a Rocket Grunt because he had hurt Typhlosion with a knife? Would Silver really be the tainted one if the people found out their champion wasn't so pure?

The what if's for Gold piled on, and Silver wasn't there to logically put them into view.

The world around Silver crushed him with it's loneliness, and Gold wasn't there to point out the cheerful things about it.

The two were living lackluster lives, and they were too scared to reach out for one another.

Green could only give a pitiful smile as Silver crashed at his house, holding an almost empty beer on his hand, but not shedding a single tear as he spoke with slurred speech.

Red offered a small nod as Gold collapsed into his cave in the cold of Mount Silver, crying because he knew why Red had isolated himself now.

They hadn't expected to run into each other in such an unromantic and meaningless place as a grocery store. Silver spotted Gold, and Gold spotted Silver. A long pause, Gold opened his mouth to speak (so many questions and confessing to do, and why was Silver putting alcohol in his cart?) but Silver had dropped what he was holding, and was gone by the time Gold tried to catch up.

Heavy breathing on both their parts, and as Silver watched Gold call out for him from the alleyway, he cried for the first time, hands shaking. He didn't return to Green's, and Gold didn't return to Red's.

Time passed, and Silver had touched every corner of Johto. Gold hadn't moved from the league building, and every trainer was demolished by his Typhlosion alone.

When Gold did go walking, every corner of his vision had Silver's soft smile, his rare laugh and his bright shock of ginger hair. Every tree Silver looked at had Gold in it, hanging off of it and laughing, and every stream had Gold splashing around, calling for Silver to come join him.

A month after Silver left Gold's appartment, he went back. The ambulance was there within minutes, and Silver was thanking anything he could think of that he had the instinct to go back.

The time we didn't run away from each other it was too late to do anything, Silver thought sadly, sitting at Gold's hospital bed, stroking the bandaged wrists with a light touch.

Can I not be haunted? Can I please be free? Must fate be so cruel? Gold thought, looking through bleary eyes at the sobbing mess that was Silver.

Gold had heard Silver's confession when the ginger thought he was asleep. Silver was never there when he woke up (but Gold wanted him to be there, so he could kiss him and hug him and have him there because everything was so overwhelming Silver, Gold can't handle it alone and needs you) and cried when Silver was gone the next morning, not coming back.

Silver traveled, and Gold followed the example when he was released from the hospital. They traveled (it was like the first journey, Silver and Gold mused) both ending up crossing paths and battling whenever they wanted but they never spoke, Silver eyeing the scars that had twisted Gold's arms to make sure none had been added.

Finally, at Victory road, Silver spoke, and Gold cried, hugging Siver as tight as he could, because, oh Silver, Gold missed you so much it hurt him. Gold knew Silver had been hurting because his hands shook and he had the urge to pick up a drink every time his was empty, and he guzzled every liquid like it was a shot of alcohol and often reached for a cigarette even though he was seventeen and too young to kill himself like that.

It took a while to heal. It took a while for Gold to put down the razor (Silver walking in on him holding the razor to his bloody wrist, and having Silver drink himself into a stupor and using drunken speech to communicate how he felt because he didn't know any other way made Gold flush the razors and not pick them up ever again) and it took a while for Silver to stop buying cigarettes. It took longer for Gold to stop going onto medication, and longer for Silver to drop the alcohol bottle. But they worked it out.

Gold told the press what happened to Giovanni, and Silver held his hand the whole way through it, never once angry with Gold. He explained how he was attending therapy and had tried to kill himself because honestly? Sometimes living was hard. Silver explained his past to the media, not once lying about how he didn't show enough love to his Pokémon, or how he had hated Gold when he stole his starter. Silver, looking at Gold the whole time, then explained when he fell in love with Gold.

That night, they went back to the field and just took in each other's scent. They ran their hands through each other's hair, whispering sweet words of love and apologies because they hurt each other and they hurt themselves but they could make it okay, because that's what they decided when Silver went through withdrawal and they both flushed Gold's razors.

Sitting in the dark, Silver loved Gold and Gold loved Silver, and they loved the nature around them and the people in their lives and everything will be alright.

Everything will be alright, because Gold and Silver loved one another, and nothing could change that.


End file.
